In a virtualized computing environment, a software environment termed a virtual machine (VM) is configured to emulate a physical machine. A physical machine, often referred to as a “host,” can be configured to implement multiple virtual machines (VMs) running operating systems that are termed guest operating systems. The physical machine includes system hardware, such as multiple physical processors (pCPUs). In addition, the physical machine includes memory and various other hardware devices, such as local storage and input/output functions.
A VM includes emulated devices, or “virtual” system hardware, that ordinarily includes virtual CPUs (vCPUs), virtual memory, virtual storage, virtual IO, and one or more other virtual devices. A VM typically will include both virtual system hardware and guest system software including virtual drivers used for various virtual devices.
The VMs are often instantiated, provisioned, and controlled by a layer of co-resident software, termed a virtual machine monitor (VMM). The VMM may allocate host machine resources dynamically and transparently among the multiple VMs so that their respective guest operating systems may run one or more vCPUs concurrently on a single physical machine.
The same numbers are used throughout the disclosure and the figures to reference like components and features. Numbers in the 100 series refer to features originally found in FIG. 1; numbers in the 200 series refer to features originally found in FIG. 2; and so on.